Pantherhttp://www.maclife.com/taxonomy/term/8649/all
enA Look Back at 10 Years of OS Xhttp://www.maclife.com/article/features/look_back_10_years_os_x
<!--paging_filter--><p>Apple calls OS X “The most advanced operating system in the world,” but really they could have called it the most beautiful and few people would have objected. OS X is full of little design touches that have redefined what people expect from a personal computer, and which complement the gorgeous Jonathan Ive-designed Macs that it runs on perfectly. In fact, you can’t (legally) install the operating system on anything but a Mac, so the two are forever entwined – and that gives Apple advantages that other computer manufacturers simply don’t have. With Apple’s latest MacBook Air, for example, you’ll find special keys on the keyboard that link specifically to new functions in OS X Lion, such as Mission Control.<br /><br />It’s not a case of style over substance, either. OS X – Apple subtly dropped the "Mac" from its name in 2011, indicating that it’s destined for more than just computers – is all about functionality. “We wanted to make this the dream user interface for somebody who has never touched a computer before, and that’s really hard to do,” said ex-Apple CEO Steve Jobs when he introduced Mac OS X 10.0 to the adoring Apple faithful for the very first time at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, January 2000. Join us as we explore the world’s most beautiful operating system and find out how Apple created it.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img src="/files/u307916/2012/Online/lionscreenmac.jpg" width="620" height="461" /></p><h3>How OS X Evolved</h3><p>From the outset Apple had one goal in mind when OS X was designed, and that was to make the next great personal computer operating system. The company wanted it to be the kind of operating system with which a beginner could feel intuitively at home, and a pro user could be taken to places they’d never thought they’d be. That’s a tall order, but eight major versions, millions of sales and a decade later, we think Apple did it.</p><p>OS X 10 was launched with a new interface called Aqua. It was named after water because one of the original designers said it looked so good that “when you saw it you wanted to lick it!” It was certainly revolutionary compared to what people had seen before.<br />The ideas behind OS X – in fact, the concept for windows, menus, pointers and so on themselves – go way back to 1979, when Steve Jobs was admitted to the research center Xerox PARC for a sneak peek at the world’s first ever GUI (Graphical User Interface), in exchange for some Apple stock options. Bear in mind that at the time all computers used text input – there were no windows, no colors and no mouse to move a cursor around with. What the young Mr. Jobs saw, in his own words, was “mind-blowing”; he realized instantly that this was the way that all computers would work one day. Inspired by that glimpse into the future he launched the Apple Lisa in 1983, which, while not the first commercial computer to feature a GUI, was certainly one of the earliest. In 1984 the Macintosh 128K was unveiled to the public, and the rest, as they say, is history.<br /><br />OS X itself actually started life outside of Apple, as part of the NeXTSTEP project developed by Steve Jobs during his tenure at NeXT, the company he’d founded after being booted out of Apple in 1985. While still at the company, Jobs had tried to create a next-generation operating system, but had met with little success. When he was forced out by the Apple board he was free to try again, but this time without being weighed down by all the old problems he’d experienced while at Apple, a company that was suffering from a huge slump in sales at the time.</p><h3>The Next Step</h3><p>While the NeXT Computer was never a success, the operating system showed promise and Jobs was brought back into the Apple fold in 1996 when Apple acquired NeXT for $429 million. NeXTSTEP, now called OpenStep, came with him. In 2000 Apple, perhaps with nothing left to lose, decided to scrap the existing code base of its operating system, then called OS 9, and introduce a radical new operating system called OS X. OpenStep formed the basis of the OS X operating system we know and love today. The first version of OS X was codenamed Cheetah, and this tradition of naming each release after a big cat continued with 10.1 Puma, 10.2 Jaguar, 10.3 Panther, 10.4 Tiger, 10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard and now 10.7 Lion.<br /><br />In the late 80s Microsoft famously aped the look and feel of the Mac with Windows 3.1, and the two companies kept improving their operating systems in an effort to outdo each other. It was a battle that Microsoft was destined to win, but while Windows won the desktop battle largely through sheer force of numbers, it looks like Apple is going to win the tablet war. After all, OS X forms much of the basis of the iOS touch-screen operating system that runs on the iPhone and iPad, and when the dust finally settles it could well be that Apple will be the dominant force in this area for years and years to come.</p><h3>Design Touches</h3><p>An operating system is defined by the little things like buttons, radio buttons, checkboxes, pop-up lists, sliders, windows, scroll bars and transparency; but it’s not only about how things look, it’s also about how they behave. The Dock, for example, has been a defining feature of OS X since the beginning, but has improved in usability along the way; Finder became more visual with Cover Flow; Snow Leopard seamlessly integrated Time Machine; and Lion gave us full-screen apps.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img src="/files/u307916/2012/Online/appstore.jpg" width="620" height="388" /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Lion is the first version of OS X to feature exclusively on the Mac App Store (although a USB version has been released).</strong></p><p>The watery feel of the Aqua interface that debuted in OS X 10.0 has certainly been through many changes over the last ten years. Cast your eyes over the screen shots on these pages and you’ll see how a more reserved grey, slate-like color scheme that reached its peak in Lion has gradually been replacing the colorful look of the original Aqua interface. This is fitting; when OS X was launched, the iMac range was full of color and transparency, and the colorful clamshell iBook (a precursor to today’s MacBook) was just around the corner. As Apple’s Mac design has become more streamlined and professional, so has OS X. Indeed, today’s OS X 10.7 Lion matches the look and feel of the unibody aluminum MacBook Pro down to the coloring – and rarely in the history of computing has there been such a winning combination of hardware and software.</p>http://www.maclife.com/article/features/look_back_10_years_os_x#commentsGalleryCheetahJaguarLeopardLionMac OS XOS XPantherPumaSnow LeopardTigerFeaturesMacMon, 30 Apr 2012 15:41:08 +0000Graham Barlow13936 at http://www.maclife.comGallery: Mac OS X Box Artwork Over The Yearshttp://www.maclife.com/article/gallery/gallery_mac_os_x_box_artwork_over_years
<!--paging_filter--><p><img src="/files/u32/2011/06/0607_osxbox_200.jpg" width="150" height="150" class="graphic-right" />Now that the features of the next iteration of Apple's OS X platform, Lion, have been unveiled at this week's WWDC, we thought it might be neat to take a peek at all the variations of the box artwork that have graced each edition of the platform over the years.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>http://www.maclife.com/article/gallery/gallery_mac_os_x_box_artwork_over_years#commentsGallerybox artCheetahGalleryJaguarLeopardLionMac OS XPantherPumaSnow LeopardTigerFeaturesMacTue, 07 Jun 2011 17:15:50 +0000Matthew Tilmann11201 at http://www.maclife.com